A DORSET man who bravely spoke out about his eating disorder to the Daily Echo last year is to share his story with hundreds of thousands of television viewers next Monday.

Library assistant John Evans, of Poole, is appearing on BBC regional programme Inside Out to talk about how being bullied over his appearance when he was at school led to him exercising obsessively and eating less.

By the time he saw a doctor, his liver and kidneys had started failing and he was diagnosed as having anorexia nervosa – an illness often wrongly associated only with teenage girls and young women.

The programme discusses how increasing numbers of young men are developing eating disorders, which affect more than a million people in the UK – between a tenth and a quarter of them male John recalls: “I couldn’t put on weight. It was the only thing good about me.”

“The only achievement I had was that I was thin.

“I felt I had to meet other people’s expectations rather than them stop bullying me or accept me for what I was.”

Frustrated by the lack of literature aimed at men and boys with eating disorders, John, now in his 30s, has published a book called Becoming John, Anorexia is Not Just for Girls, in the hope of helping other male sufferers.

The book traces his illness from its origins through to the obsessions and rituals of his life.

Extracts from John’s diary detail his struggles during the four months as a hospital inpatient, where he was the only man on a 10 bed ward.

“Maybe there’s someone out there like me that might see this book and recognise something in them that I went through.

“Maybe they will go to their GP and wheels will get set in motion a lot quicker than they were with me and they won’t have to live their 20s like they didn’t happen,” he tells the programme.

Anorexia nervosa is a complex condition in which people deny themselves food despite feeling hungry.

It is often accompanied by compulsive exercising and misuse of laxatives.

Also featured on the programme is Sam Thomas of Sussex, who had bulimia nervosa, a condition in which binge eating may be followed by strict dieting, over-exercising, vomiting, or taking laxatives or diuretics.

Bulimics are often ill for a long time before being diagnosed, as they tend to be secretive about their compulsive eating and are usually of normal weight or only a little overweight.

Sam set up a charity called MGEDT (Men Get Eating Disorders Too) and has launched an e-petition calling on the government to improve eating disorders services for men. • Being John is available from xlibrispublishing.co.uk